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On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics.
It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on.
Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc.
You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view.
Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods.
And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one.
Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc.
So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread.
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On February 26 2013 02:56 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2013 05:25 red_ wrote:On February 24 2013 19:04 sunprince wrote:On February 24 2013 15:26 red_ wrote:On February 24 2013 15:00 billy5000 wrote:On February 24 2013 14:46 forsooth wrote:On February 24 2013 14:35 billy5000 wrote:On February 24 2013 14:14 forsooth wrote:On February 24 2013 13:40 IPA wrote:On February 22 2013 03:54 1Dhalism wrote:
Also money and success are a pretty good measure of character. This is one of the more ridiculous things I've read on TL. I would say rather that it's one of the dumbest things I've read anywhere in my entire life. While I agree that's a naive thing to say, money and success can definitely boost your character if used the right way. Your character is what it is regardless of whether or not you have money. What you choose to do with wealth is nothing but a manifestation of what's already inside you. My point was that wealth creates more opportunities for a person to build his character. In other words, it can amplify a person's character more than someone without it. Compare a person who's living paycheck to paycheck and doesn't have the time to really "give back to the community" (or something else along the lines) other than what he can manage at the time, and someone who has enough time to commit his time to wholeheartedly help. The latter is more likely to be noticed as someone of character than the former. You sir, have just made an argument against yourself; that is a good reason why money and success might actually be terrible measures of character. Your definitions are confused. Whether or not money and success imply "good" or "bad" things about a person's character, does not imply they are not useful at measuring character. If they were useful for measuring character, then you would be able to make a definitive, objective statement about the difference in character of a poor man who gives everything he is capable of in community service and volunteer work vs the rich man who does the same(but in more abundant amount as pointed out in the previous post). There is no difference in their character, they both display great quality as we define it in our society, one simply has more resources(he could have inherited his wealth for the sake of this argument even, so you can't even say his character gave him resources). Thus, using wealth especially, and to a lesser extent success(because success can be use in an abstract sense and subjectively means something different to different people), is a bad measure of character. The post I quoted basically says the exact opposite of what you are intimating from it. Your entire post rests upon the assumption that character is limited to "good character" and "bad character". This is a blatant oversimplification. Wealth (or lack thereof) can indicate character traits such as ambition, or greed, or intelligence, or patience, etc. In other words, wealth is correlated with a number of character traits (as is lack of wealth), which does give you insight into a person's character.
Patience (with people specifically) and greed are character traits, ambition and intelligence are not. Wealth tells you nothing about character, you literally know nothing about somebody's character based on their wealth. They might be lucky, they might be an honest worker, they might be a thief, you have literally no indication of their character by knowing their wealth. They could be a rich dick or a poor kind person. I don't understand why people think that money means character. It doesn't.
Character refers to morals, ethics and principles.
Characteristics refer to distinguishing attributes, which include a persons character, but a persons character does not include all of their distinguishing attributes.
This logic is terrible to me because that means you basically think in general poor people tend be scumbags and rich people tend to be good people.
You think it is an oversimplification, I think you are trying to combine the meaning of other words to fit the meaning of character. You can't measure character in dollar bills. Period.
The concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits. Wealth and intelligence have no relation to any of these things.
What somebody does with their wealth is telling of their character (greedy or generous). What somebody does with their ambition is telling of their character (selfless vs selfish ambition..ambition doesn't mean integrity). What somebody does with their intelligence is telling of their character. But none of those things standing alone say anything about a persons character, its all about what they do with it.
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On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread.
Um...
We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly.
Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were.
I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere.
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On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere.
You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur.
It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two.
I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with.
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On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with.
Nature is when all civilizations decided to put a roof over their head to not get wet or burn in the sun.
Nurture is the fact that each region had a different idea what a domicile looks like.
Nature is the larger creature protecting smaller creatures.
Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles. A power dynamic is created whereby the smaller creature is forced into submission at the threat of losing the larger creature's protection. As we evolve and sized stopped being the defining construct of safety, we still retained those power dynamics formed. That retention is a societal choice--ie nurture. We now shoot each other with bullets that travel faster than the speed of sound with enough force to pierce a tank--and only just recently did the US think it was okay to have women fight in war. That is not a nature issue, that is a nurture issue. Men being seen as the more powerful creature is a nurture issue, not a nature one. It took less than 2000 years for the cow to become a docile immobile lump of meat that would never survive in the wild. Are you really suggesting that humans are more resistant to cultural forces than a cow?
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On February 26 2013 09:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with. Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles.
You lost me here. Even if what you are saying makes sense (and it doesn't really) you have no evidence or even logical foundation for making this claim. An alpha wolf acts like it is better than a beta wolf. Is that nature or nurture? Do wolves have culture?
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When it's the difference between struggling through life and living comfortably sure, it's fair to base that as a reason for choosing another man. When it's the difference between living comfortably and living luxuriously then no, they are shallow and I would never want to be with someone like that
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
If my desire to have my children not look like tiny gremlins is superficial, then a desire to raise children in an affluent home is superficial.
Anyway there are a lot of studies explaining why males are attracted to what they are attracted to. Go read up. Apparently everything is just conditioning and evolution.
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On February 26 2013 06:18 kmillz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 02:56 sunprince wrote:On February 25 2013 05:25 red_ wrote:On February 24 2013 19:04 sunprince wrote:On February 24 2013 15:26 red_ wrote:On February 24 2013 15:00 billy5000 wrote:On February 24 2013 14:46 forsooth wrote:On February 24 2013 14:35 billy5000 wrote:On February 24 2013 14:14 forsooth wrote:On February 24 2013 13:40 IPA wrote:
[quote]
This is one of the more ridiculous things I've read on TL. I would say rather that it's one of the dumbest things I've read anywhere in my entire life. While I agree that's a naive thing to say, money and success can definitely boost your character if used the right way. Your character is what it is regardless of whether or not you have money. What you choose to do with wealth is nothing but a manifestation of what's already inside you. My point was that wealth creates more opportunities for a person to build his character. In other words, it can amplify a person's character more than someone without it. Compare a person who's living paycheck to paycheck and doesn't have the time to really "give back to the community" (or something else along the lines) other than what he can manage at the time, and someone who has enough time to commit his time to wholeheartedly help. The latter is more likely to be noticed as someone of character than the former. You sir, have just made an argument against yourself; that is a good reason why money and success might actually be terrible measures of character. Your definitions are confused. Whether or not money and success imply "good" or "bad" things about a person's character, does not imply they are not useful at measuring character. If they were useful for measuring character, then you would be able to make a definitive, objective statement about the difference in character of a poor man who gives everything he is capable of in community service and volunteer work vs the rich man who does the same(but in more abundant amount as pointed out in the previous post). There is no difference in their character, they both display great quality as we define it in our society, one simply has more resources(he could have inherited his wealth for the sake of this argument even, so you can't even say his character gave him resources). Thus, using wealth especially, and to a lesser extent success(because success can be use in an abstract sense and subjectively means something different to different people), is a bad measure of character. The post I quoted basically says the exact opposite of what you are intimating from it. Your entire post rests upon the assumption that character is limited to "good character" and "bad character". This is a blatant oversimplification. Wealth (or lack thereof) can indicate character traits such as ambition, or greed, or intelligence, or patience, etc. In other words, wealth is correlated with a number of character traits (as is lack of wealth), which does give you insight into a person's character. Patience (with people specifically) and greed are character traits, ambition and intelligence are not. Wealth tells you nothing about character, you literally know nothing about somebody's character based on their wealth. They might be lucky, they might be an honest worker, they might be a thief, you have literally no indication of their character by knowing their wealth. They could be a rich dick or a poor kind person. I don't understand why people think that money means character. It doesn't.
While there are any number of reasons why a person might be wealthy, this doesn't change the fact that it generally reflects certain character traits. You do understand what I meant when I used the word "correlated", don't you?
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On February 26 2013 09:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with. Nature is when all civilizations decided to put a roof over their head to not get wet or burn in the sun. Nurture is the fact that each region had a different idea what a domicile looks like. Nature is the larger creature protecting smaller creatures. Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles. A power dynamic is created whereby the smaller creature is forced into submission at the threat of losing the larger creature's protection. As we evolve and sized stopped being the defining construct of safety, we still retained those power dynamics formed. That retention is a societal choice--ie nurture. We now shoot each other with bullets that travel faster than the speed of sound with enough force to pierce a tank--and only just recently did the US think it was okay to have women fight in war. That is not a nature issue, that is a nurture issue. Men being seen as the more powerful creature is a nurture issue, not a nature one. It took less than 2000 years for the cow to become a docile immobile lump of meat that would never survive in the wild. Are you really suggesting that humans are more resistant to cultural forces than a cow?
Cows don't have cultural pressures. Cows don't have culture. What does a cow being domesticated have to do with men being seen as more powerful in society. Are you trying to say that women have been domesticated like a cow, and men the opposite? This is shedding light on the psychology of some weird fetishes.
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On February 26 2013 16:44 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 06:18 kmillz wrote:On February 26 2013 02:56 sunprince wrote:On February 25 2013 05:25 red_ wrote:On February 24 2013 19:04 sunprince wrote:On February 24 2013 15:26 red_ wrote:On February 24 2013 15:00 billy5000 wrote:On February 24 2013 14:46 forsooth wrote:On February 24 2013 14:35 billy5000 wrote:On February 24 2013 14:14 forsooth wrote:
[quote]
I would say rather that it's one of the dumbest things I've read anywhere in my entire life. While I agree that's a naive thing to say, money and success can definitely boost your character if used the right way. Your character is what it is regardless of whether or not you have money. What you choose to do with wealth is nothing but a manifestation of what's already inside you. My point was that wealth creates more opportunities for a person to build his character. In other words, it can amplify a person's character more than someone without it. Compare a person who's living paycheck to paycheck and doesn't have the time to really "give back to the community" (or something else along the lines) other than what he can manage at the time, and someone who has enough time to commit his time to wholeheartedly help. The latter is more likely to be noticed as someone of character than the former. You sir, have just made an argument against yourself; that is a good reason why money and success might actually be terrible measures of character. Your definitions are confused. Whether or not money and success imply "good" or "bad" things about a person's character, does not imply they are not useful at measuring character. If they were useful for measuring character, then you would be able to make a definitive, objective statement about the difference in character of a poor man who gives everything he is capable of in community service and volunteer work vs the rich man who does the same(but in more abundant amount as pointed out in the previous post). There is no difference in their character, they both display great quality as we define it in our society, one simply has more resources(he could have inherited his wealth for the sake of this argument even, so you can't even say his character gave him resources). Thus, using wealth especially, and to a lesser extent success(because success can be use in an abstract sense and subjectively means something different to different people), is a bad measure of character. The post I quoted basically says the exact opposite of what you are intimating from it. Your entire post rests upon the assumption that character is limited to "good character" and "bad character". This is a blatant oversimplification. Wealth (or lack thereof) can indicate character traits such as ambition, or greed, or intelligence, or patience, etc. In other words, wealth is correlated with a number of character traits (as is lack of wealth), which does give you insight into a person's character. Patience (with people specifically) and greed are character traits, ambition and intelligence are not. Wealth tells you nothing about character, you literally know nothing about somebody's character based on their wealth. They might be lucky, they might be an honest worker, they might be a thief, you have literally no indication of their character by knowing their wealth. They could be a rich dick or a poor kind person. I don't understand why people think that money means character. It doesn't. While there are any number of reasons why a person might be wealthy, this doesn't change the fact that it generally reflects certain character traits. You do understand what I meant when I used the word "correlated", don't you?
Yes I do, however I don't think there is one. Like I said before, what kind of ambition a person has could be a reflection on a persons character, but simply having ambition does not. As I already explained, selfless ambition vs selfish ambition. There is no correlation between wealth and integrity. If you were born into wealth you may have been spoiled and snobby, or you could be nice, or you could be neither. If you weren't born into wealth you could acquire it by stealing from people, ripping people off, winning the lottery, or earning it by being a hard worker, but you simply don't know and have no way of accurately pointing out what kind of person they are based on that. To quantify ones character in dollars complicates the matter too much to make an accurate judgment.
Are most millionaires rich because they worked for it or because they inherited it? Is someone with $50,000,000 more ambitious than someone with $2,000,000? Or are they just older? Or luckier? Too many factors to measure.
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On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread.
You're right in that the genetics determined the culture for thousands of years and therefore indirectly genetics of humans affects gender roles to a massive extent today. While that explains why today's culture is the way it is, it isn't what most people mean when they refer to "nature". They're typically referring to the direct impact of genetics upon each individual person, and not the thousands of years of culture that were caused because of a hostile environment + genetics + natural selection. It's a good point, but it isn't super relevant to the future because you can just treat today's culture as "ground zero" (i.e. how we got here culturally isn't as relevant as how we can change the culture now that we are more advanced).
The ideal scenario is that over the next hundred years, the gender roles will begin to equalize because the genetic/hormonal traits that made men so 'superior' to women in the past are now almost entirely irrelevant. However, we may keep gender roles the same or even drift them further apart depending on how things proceed. The media in specific is a very interesting area of debate on this issue because it is easy to argue that it is holding gender roles in place, but it is also easy to argue that the increased connectivity is helping to displace them.
On a different note, more and more we're finding that the genetic differences between men and women can be mostly summarized as "hormonal differences" because the actual genetic differences between the X and Y chromosome (apart from their effects on hormone production/pituitary) are not very large at all.
Some things that are real modern genetic/hormonal differences (ignoring puberty's differences specifically because that would take too much time to compile):
Men - slightly more aggressive, take slightly more risks, moderate increase in muscle mass (this is actually not part of puberty but a continual process)
Women - slightly stronger emotions, slightly better memory, moderate fat redistribution (this is actually not part of puberty but a continual process)
And I emphasize the "slightly" in this. It had an small to moderate increase in something like 25% of men for the risk-taking study IIRC. These qualities are all found in men to much more ridiculous extents than pure genetics/hormones cause because our society has compounded the genetic/hormonal differences so that they are part of our gender roles.
Side note: It's sad how hard it is to find decent estrogen/progesterone/etc studies. Testosterone studies are a dime a dozen, but the other body's hormones are just as critical and so under researched. They don't even teach the benefits of most of them in textbooks besides testosterone, which leads to further cultural issues ("men have more of the best hormone").
I guess my overall point here is that genetics used to be super important, and now the main factor is actually just the lingering presence of the time when genetics were important (these are now "gender roles"). After those are dissolved or largely worn down at least, the real effects of our genetics in a modern day society will come through (i.e. we're pretty fucking similar). It does kind of baffle me why some men/women don't want to accept the reality that they're truly very similar.
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On February 26 2013 16:59 ZackAttack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 09:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with. Nature is when all civilizations decided to put a roof over their head to not get wet or burn in the sun. Nurture is the fact that each region had a different idea what a domicile looks like. Nature is the larger creature protecting smaller creatures. Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles. A power dynamic is created whereby the smaller creature is forced into submission at the threat of losing the larger creature's protection. As we evolve and sized stopped being the defining construct of safety, we still retained those power dynamics formed. That retention is a societal choice--ie nurture. We now shoot each other with bullets that travel faster than the speed of sound with enough force to pierce a tank--and only just recently did the US think it was okay to have women fight in war. That is not a nature issue, that is a nurture issue. Men being seen as the more powerful creature is a nurture issue, not a nature one. It took less than 2000 years for the cow to become a docile immobile lump of meat that would never survive in the wild. Are you really suggesting that humans are more resistant to cultural forces than a cow? Cows don't have cultural pressures. Cows don't have culture. What does a cow being domesticated have to do with men being seen as more powerful in society. Are you trying to say that women have been domesticated like a cow, and men the opposite? This is shedding light on the psychology of some weird fetishes.
Do you even know what domestication means?
Cows have been taught how to eat, when to sleep, and what to eat, how to sleep, how to run, how to live, etc... There is nothing a cow does that is not regulated and guided by man's cultural pressures on the lives of cows. Domesticated animals barely breed without human supervision. No, cows are not these animals that walk around in cow preservations being hunted from their natural habitats. They are man taught animals living in man made environments, living by man made rules--they live within the pressures of human culture and in less than 2000 years they (as well as all other domesticated animals) have radically changed in both size, shape, and demeanor. No amount of their primitive natural instincts could overcome human influences on their lives. The same is true for humans.
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the nurture of today is the nature of tomorrow.
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On February 26 2013 10:13 HardlyNever wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 09:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with. Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles. You lost me here. Even if what you are saying makes sense (and it doesn't really) you have no evidence or even logical foundation for making this claim. An alpha wolf acts like it is better than a beta wolf. Is that nature or nurture? Do wolves have culture?
A.) wolves do have culture. Which is why they have regular sized groups, org structure, hunting practices, etc... They don't happen to just "randomly hunt in a pack." But this is really a moot point.
B.) whether a group determines that everyone within the group is equal or whether there is a logical inequality within the group is cultural construct. A security guard is not a better human than a cashier clerk. A police officer is not a better human than a meter maid. A cook for a naval carrier is not a better human than the cook of a New York restaurant. Being a protector of a group simply means that that is your job--associating that power as superiority is a cultural construct.
Women are still attracted to the protector due to its association with power--which why "I love a man in uniform" is a common phrase of sexual signifiers. But these are normally projected onto things with social capital. When a woman says "I love a man in uniform" what she means is cops, firefighters, military, etc... And not warehouse security, mall security, etc...
So yes, the specialization of the protective figure still happens, it happens because Of the power dynamic between the two beings in question. Yet, notice how policy regularly does everything it can to prevent this role from being infiltrated by femininity? Notice how only recently the US has allowed women to fight? Because of American misogyny women are constantly restricted from positions of power such as the military because that is not thei societal role. It is to protect the power dynamic of male superiority (because no one actually hates and is reviled by women, despite how many American laws attack their rights and bodies) it is American culture forcing the dominant/submissive relationship of the male/female relationship that hurts and attacks women in America.
Hence why it is nurture (and not nature) to associate being the protecter as being superior.
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On February 26 2013 09:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with. Nature is when all civilizations decided to put a roof over their head to not get wet or burn in the sun. Nurture is the fact that each region had a different idea what a domicile looks like. Nature is the larger creature protecting smaller creatures. Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles. A power dynamic is created whereby the smaller creature is forced into submission at the threat of losing the larger creature's protection. As we evolve and sized stopped being the defining construct of safety, we still retained those power dynamics formed. That retention is a societal choice--ie nurture. We now shoot each other with bullets that travel faster than the speed of sound with enough force to pierce a tank--and only just recently did the US think it was okay to have women fight in war. That is not a nature issue, that is a nurture issue. Men being seen as the more powerful creature is a nurture issue, not a nature one. It took less than 2000 years for the cow to become a docile immobile lump of meat that would never survive in the wild. Are you really suggesting that humans are more resistant to cultural forces than a cow?
Quote of the day. Because it is known that in the times of Jesus, caws were madly vicious animals that would go on rampages and destroy entire villages just by themselves. Oh the horror.
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To go back to the topic--the US is a country that associates money with power. Women are supposed to be attracted to men in power. So women fulfill this role by being attracted to rich men. If American culture ha said "number of piercings denotes power" then those same women would be attracted to the men with the most piercings. It's not the money, it's the association we as a culture have with money.
The only cultural force men are subjected to is the American objectification of women. When news/entertainment/social media objectifies women's bodies and treats them as vessels of sex and production--then it's natural that men are attracted to "pretty" women, society is telling them to be attracted to pretty women. Much on the same way women are told to be attracted to powerful men whether that be defined as money, brawn, safety, or social capital (being famous/best at something).
People acting this way are not shallow, theyre simply playing their part in the cogs of society.
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On February 26 2013 22:56 Ender985 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 09:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with. Nature is when all civilizations decided to put a roof over their head to not get wet or burn in the sun. Nurture is the fact that each region had a different idea what a domicile looks like. Nature is the larger creature protecting smaller creatures. Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles. A power dynamic is created whereby the smaller creature is forced into submission at the threat of losing the larger creature's protection. As we evolve and sized stopped being the defining construct of safety, we still retained those power dynamics formed. That retention is a societal choice--ie nurture. We now shoot each other with bullets that travel faster than the speed of sound with enough force to pierce a tank--and only just recently did the US think it was okay to have women fight in war. That is not a nature issue, that is a nurture issue. Men being seen as the more powerful creature is a nurture issue, not a nature one. It took less than 2000 years for the cow to become a docile immobile lump of meat that would never survive in the wild. Are you really suggesting that humans are more resistant to cultural forces than a cow? Quote of the day. Because it is known that in the times of Jesus, caws were madly vicious animals that would go on rampages and destroy entire villages just by themselves. Oh the horror.
How many villages have been regularly trampled by wildabeast? Would you consider those animals domesticated or wild? Or maybe wild does not mean tramples villages but simply being a wild animal that minds it's own business until you go to his land and fuck with him. Wild does not mean monster of the week.
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On February 26 2013 22:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 10:13 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 09:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 08:55 HardlyNever wrote:On February 26 2013 08:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 26 2013 05:39 Vivax wrote:On February 26 2013 03:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 23 2013 11:06 NeMaTo wrote:On February 23 2013 10:28 plated.rawr wrote:
That anyone would even believe this, bleakens my view of humanity even further. There's far more complex mechanics to humans than simple biological imperative and social situation.
There's three main sources of attraction. Physical, mental and social - money being a part of social.
Human beings are animals governed by instincts, sure. But we're also given the powers of rationality and logic, which in many ways defy instincts. In the end, human actions and social connections is a contradiction to ourselves - our mating habits included. Well said. I am amazed that so many people here attempt to explain our complex nature from a purely biological standpoint, and even more amazed at how many more people agree to these obsolete explanations. "Women are attracted to men with money because she wants a partner who can support her children." "Men are attracted to beautiful women so his offsprings will be beautiful." So why are many men interested in anal sex? What does that have anything to do with fertility? Why do so many women like to go shopping? If all women were instinctively driven by their maternal behaviors, and if they were indeed looking for men to provide safety and support, why would they then use the money to go shopping on clothes? They would use the money to support their children (e.g., education), not on a Prada bag. Here are some more questions to think before accepting the biological argument. If men are attracted to beautiful women for the sake of his offsprings (with the priority on the physical beauty), then why shouldn't women also be attracted to handsome men for the same reason? Why is it that nobody questions the discrepancy in these statements? If men want beautiful offsprings, and are inherently driven to reach that goal via mate selection, then why is it that women, who are ASSUMED to be at least as evenly concerned about offspring's safety and support, do not consider the appearance of the male partner to the same priority? (Note that this ASSUMPTION is made not by me, but by the very same supporters who think men like beautiful women for the sake of beautiful offsprings.) And if men are indeed driven to seek out beautiful partners for the sake his offsprings, then the men who like beautiful women must all be very thoughtful, caring, family-oriented, and supportive of his children. So why are there so many incidents of child abuses? Why does he cheat when he has a beautiful wife and children at home? Wouldn't it be his first priority to look after his offsprings? It's purely a power dynamic. The male is perceived to be more powerful in misogynistic countries while the female is perceived to be submissive. This is why women want rich men *power* but men don't go after Buff/Rich/Dominant women. Because we play the roles we have been taught to play by society. It has nothing to do with wanting better looking offspring or shopping. A woman who loves to shop can just as easily get a well paying job or simply shop at smaller stores. A man could doesn't want a pretty girl for her "genes" or else he'd just spend his time with new/young hookers every week to make sure he has sex with the maximum number of pretty girls per month to maximize gene dispersion. Here's the truth. Men want pretty women because they want to outdo other men in social power. The guy who has the prettiest/most girl/s is perceived to be more powerful much like a Pride of lions only has 1 male. Women go after men for money/protection because they are playing the role of submission and have been taught to enjoy that role. In the end it's about power dynamics. It's not just a cultural thing. There are societies in which women play a dominant role, a tribe in Mexico of which I don't remember the name for example. But in most parts of the world men had physical strength on their side and could do with women much of what they wanted to, and that is the evolutionary basis for the picture we see today, on which the cultural one is built on. Woman rights are something that has evolved in the last century, and despite being able to vote during WW 2 already, women's roles were still clearly imposed. They were required to work in kitchens, factories etc. You are fighting the nature vs nurture debate from the nurturist's standpoint, but the truth is in between and both sides have already taken a moderate point of view. Genetics to neuroscience to behavioural biology to rest of psychology are the fields that study different parts of the same subject with different methods. And yes, women like men with higher status than their own, they also pay less attention to physical appearance and more to status symbols and dominance, confidence. But whether they like dominant men or nice guys is also dependent on the timing of their period. Around ovulation period they prefer the dominant type and otherwise they tend to appreciate the nice one. Then, nice type and dominant type are associated with facial and bodily traits. Men's face shape and muscular tone is influenced by testosterone levels in the teens, testosterone levels are influenced by genetics and behaviour etc. So you see, there's a lot more to the subject than one can bring up in this thread. Um... We also have about 2000 years of evolution guided heavily by cultural norms more so than nature's stresses. And much like the cow, the dog, the pig, and the chicken don't look or act at all like their ancestors, neither do we as humans act very similar to our ancestors except in one regard--cultural consistencies. However, these cultural consistencies have been found to be, for the most part, societally defined moreso than naturally occurring. Because of this, attempting to say that we treat men and women like we do is not because of cultural norms but because of some evolutionary tick that we had thousands of years ago is folly. Yes, they are coming closer and closer to a middle ground, but as far as I can tell, "nurturists" as you call it have not budged from their stance while evolutionists slowly find more and more evidence that they're less right than they initially thought they were. I'm biased of course, living in as misogynistic a country as the US; it's hard not to see it everywhere. You have to ask yourself where those cultural norms originated from. Or where "culture" in general originated from. And I'm not talking about "recent" culture of 2000 years ago, I'm talking about the time when "instinct (or whatever it is you want to call it)" and "culture" first started to blur. It isn't an accident that most (not all) of the major cultures of the world have males as the dominant sex. It should be obvious that there is a mutual factor (shared among all humans) that caused that (i.e. nature). Culture is a reflection of human "nature" from before there was an idea of culture. And that is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can't separate the two. I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but you seem to be suggesting culture developed completely arbitrarily, and not as a product of human nature to begin with. Nurture is the larger creature thinking this makes him better than the smaller creature when it simply is a variance in roles. You lost me here. Even if what you are saying makes sense (and it doesn't really) you have no evidence or even logical foundation for making this claim. An alpha wolf acts like it is better than a beta wolf. Is that nature or nurture? Do wolves have culture? A.) wolves do have culture. Which is why they have regular sized groups, org structure, hunting practices, etc... They don't happen to just "randomly hunt in a pack." But this is really a moot point.
Why can't you just admit you are wrong instead of saying completely asinine things like "wolves have culture." If this is true, the "nature" side the argument simply doesn't exist. Of course you are going to see everything as "nurture" if you completely eliminate the other side of the equation.
Sigh le internet.
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I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but I think this previous TL thread is highly relevant to the discussion, particularly the first episode on gender: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=327138
The reason why women prefer dominant and wealthy males and prefer to work in support jobs like secretaries, nurses, etc., is simply evolutionary biology.
The point about changing the physiology of animals, such as cows, via domestication doesn't disprove this. In domestication, animals are specifically chosen for breeding, which greatly accelerates evolution. Naturally, you cannot expect a thousand years of human civilization and a few hundred years of equality for women, to have even the most negligible effect on the conditioning that has been done over millions of years of evolution. Homo sapiens have been on the planet for over 100,000 years, the last few hundred years is simply immaterial in the grand time scales of evolution.
The documentary linked above is from Norway, where women are more equal than in virtually any other country. In the documentary, it shows that the freer the women in society are, the more they freely tend to choose traditional roles.
In addition, experiments testing the preferences of newborns, before any social conditioning could take place also demonstrates automatic preferences for traditional gender roles. So claims that roles and preferences of females (or males for that matter) are based more so on culture and society, don't seem to fit the facts. Moreover, culture and society didn't just fall from the sky, it too is a result of evolutionary biology.
I don't want to sound like a sexist. This is just science.
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EPT
